


Efface

by Stairre



Series: Resonance [3]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Cybertronian culture, Desertion, Don't copy to another site, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, Implied/Referenced War Crimes, M/M, Make-shift medical procedures, Symbolic Rituals, There are no good guys in war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:07:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26525710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stairre/pseuds/Stairre
Summary: Deadlock and Hot Rod's desertion is nearly complete; they have a ship, they have supplies, they even have a plan. There's just one thing weighing on both of their minds...---Or: Deadlock and Hot Rod complicate getting rid of their faction symbols, our pair take a six-stop trip down memory lane, and the author makes what should have been a single scene tacked on at the end ofEludeinto its own full-on instalment, due to the fact that they lose all sense of brevity when it comes to world-building.
Relationships: Drift | Deadlock/Hot Rod
Series: Resonance [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1843339
Comments: 8
Kudos: 59





	Efface

**Resonance**

**Efface**

–

“You know,” Hot Rod says, distractedly, optics watching his own fingers tap against the sigil on his chest. “Optimus Prime himself performed my Act of Affiliation.”

The two of them are sitting in the _Luminary’s_ small lounge area on sofas bolted to the floor, the auto-pilot in control of the ship. There’s a medium-sized stain of old energon spraying up the back of one of them, but they’ll get rid of that soon enough. Hot Rod learnt how to get dried energon out of high-density foam aeons ago, and he’s sure Deadlock’s had the knowledge for longer.

Deadlock turns his head to look at him. “… I’ll admit to being unfamiliar with the specifics of taking the Auto-brand,” he says. “Is that… rare?”

Hot Rod shrugs awkwardly. “Maybe not so much at the beginning,” he says, “but definitely by now. It’s always the highest ranking officer present who does it. And mecha don’t just join Prime’s team as newbies. Heh. The Primal Vanguard may be long gone in name, but it survives in other ways, I suppose.”

Deadlock hums, catching Hot Rod’s fingers in his own, stopping his spark-mate’s fidgeting. “It was only ever Megatron or one of the Conclave who officiated the Rite of Affiliation,” he says. “I… I was one of the Conclave. Lotta Decepticons who were there from the start were.”

Deadlock’s face twists at that confession, but it’s not like Hot Rod didn’t know his spark-mate had been neck-deep inside the Decepticons for millions of years. He rubs his fingers in circles over the back of Deadlock’s hand, and absently wonders if his mate ever inducted mecha Hot Rod had known from Nyon. He doesn’t ask.

“Hm,” Hot Rod says, thinking it over, “makes sense, I suppose. I mean, the Autobots started as a government-mandated organisation. So havin’ the induction be carried out by whatever officer was available fits in. And – taking the Decepticon sigil started as a very personal, very _risky_ choice. Having it recognised only by certain mecha makes sense. Very cult-like. But it makes sense.”

Deadlock snorts, but then his laugh turns bitter. “I suppose so,” he says. “Megatron’s cult of personality. It wasn’t – we didn’t set out to do that. I _know_ that Megatron didn’t. But. Times change.”

Hot Rod nods. “Yeah…” he says, looking across the room to the thrice-reinforced crystal glass porthole, the streaks of stars blurring away outside. “Times change.”

–

Hot Rod stares at the tin of high-grade dissolving solution. Paint stripper with the dial turned up to the max.

He’s in the wash-rack, seated on a chair that folds out of the wall, far less rickety than the thing they’d had before. His knee is still sore, the gears integrated only 56%, but it’s not that that makes him sit down. It’s the weight of this choice, the visual reality of breaking an oath he held for nearly three million years, that rests heavy on his spark.

Primus, it’s just a tin and a brush. How hard can it be? Lather it on, wait for a couple of hours, scrub it off. It’ll hurt, yes, ‘cause they don’t have any sensor-net dampeners to numb the area while Hot Rod chemically burns off the top layer of his plating, leaving it exposed until his colour nanites buzz into action, but pain has never made Hot Rod hesitate before.

Uneasy, Hot Rod gets up, wavers a moment, then steps back out of the room, leaving the tin, brush and chair where they are. He wants to talk to his spark-mate, though what he’ll say he doesn’t know. There’s just that deep-coding urge to touch base with Deadlock, to share a problem and so half it.

Maybe that will set his brain module firmly in his helm.

–

Hot Rod finds Deadlock bent over their med-kit.

“Is there something wrong?” he asks, thoughts of the tin back in the wash-rack flying out of his processor. He comes to stand beside Deadlock, resting one hand on the back of Deadlock’s shoulder pauldron, just underneath the extension of his large kibble.

Deadlock straightens and shows Hot Rod the plasma cutter he’s holding in his hand. “You’re gonna have to remove my symbol,” he says. “There’s – I can’t do it by myself. The angle’s not good. Too risky.”

His spark-mate’s mouth twists, and Hot Rod thinks, _Oh._

Deadlock goes on. “I know we don’t have any sensor-net dampeners, but I’d like to do this as soon as.” He fingers his own raised sigil, the side of his claws running along the edges.

_I can remove mine,_ Hot Rod thinks to himself. _But he can’t remove his without help._

“I’ve got that tin of stripper in the wash-rack,” he says, not quite knowing where he’s going with this line of thought, but needing to speak it aloud. “But – I don’t know. I couldn’t just do it.” He presents this information like an offering, implicitly asking his mate to help him make sense of it.

Deadlock’s optics narrow a moment, thoughtfulness curling through the bond as Hot Rod’s mate turns this information over in his mind. “It’s the symbolism of it, isn’t it?” he asks eventually. “You can change yourself, but I can’t change without you, or something like that. It feels… unequal. Uncomfortable.”

Hot Rod nods, gladdened by Deadlock having the words that he did not. “Yeah,” he says, “that’s it. ‘Cause… we made this choice both individually _and_ together. I mean – I know that it’s just a brand, but, y’know, it’s _the_ brand. I’m. Not explainin’ this well.”

“Hot Rod,” Deadlock interrupts, gently, “our species _thrives_ on rituals and symbolism. Think of all the ones we have – the Act of Transition, the Rite of Oneness, the Festival of Lost Light, and many more. Pit, the Senate founded a military police organisation to help oppress the masses and one of the first things they did was create an induction ritual to go with it. Wanting to do something symbolic to firmly end a part of your life is entirely within the scope of your instincts, both natural and culturally taught.”

Hot Rod pauses, then squints at his mate. He lets his silence do the talking.

“… Megatron may have talked about the subject at length whilst tipsy one day.” Deadlock averts his optics shiftily. “Back – back when we were first gaining traction. When suddenly a Rite of Affiliation to the Decepticons was becoming a need, rather than an abstract idea.”

“He meant a lot to you, didn’t he?” Hot Rod asks quietly.

Deadlock nods, shutters his optics, and says, “So let’s create our own little ritual. To draw a clear line between our past and our future.”

Hot Rod lets his mate leave the topic of Megatron behind. He gets the feeling that it’ll be centuries before Deadlock’s ready to talk about it. And that’s fine, ‘cause Hot Rod’s got stuff he wants to tell his mate eventually, but not any time soon. “Yes. I – yes. I mean. I have no idea what I’m doing, like. But this is important.”

Deadlock’s face remains focused, but Hot Rod can feel in his spark the way he internally loosens in gratitude. “Okay,” he says, dragging in a vent, holding it for a moment, then ex-venting it in a rush of recycled ship air. “First things first. The physical limitations we’ve got on hand.”

“No sensor-net dampeners,” Hot Rod answers immediately, “so nothing drawn-out or requiring much movement. And one of us physically _needs_ the other to remove their brand. Er… We’re on a ship in the middle of nowhere, so nothing that we haven’t already got onboard should be involved… I think that’s it.”

“What if we remove each other’s brands?” Deadlock proposes.

Hot Rod considers it, turning over the concept in his head. It’s a good compromise, but – “I want to at least be part of the removal of my own brand,” he says. “It’s – I’m the one cutting the tie. I’m – Primus. I won’t say that you’re not a factor, ‘cause you definitely are, but I’m not doing it solely _for_ you, if that makes sense? I’m doing this for myself as well. It’s _me_ who’s changed my mind, ultimately. Yeah, I’m going off to try an’ make a life with you, but you weren’t some kind of, I don’t know, _corrupting influence_ who _made_ me change. _I_ made me change.”

Deadlock nods, lifting his hand to stroke the side of Hot Rod’s helm, holding it there. “I understand,” he says. “Perhaps… together? Say, if you’re holding the plasma cutter, and I’ve got my hands resting on the back of your hands, then it’s like we’re doing it in tandem, yes? Would that be okay?”

That’s okay in Hot Rod’s data-logs. It’s _more_ than okay. “Yeah,” he agrees, “that sounds good. An’ you can brush on the dissolver while I do the same, an’ then it’s equal.”

Deadlock smiles, sharp but sweet. “Then that’s the plan,” he says. “Don’t think we’ll need much more. Let’s not over-complicate it.”

Hot Rod agrees.

–

They end up back in the wash-rack, the med-kit now hauled in and sitting beside them as they kneel on the tiled floor, the chair folded back up into the wall.

“It’ll take a couple of hours for the stripper to work,” Hot Rod says. “So… if we do me first, an’ then wait. An’ later I’ll cut off your brand an’ you’ll scrub off mine, an’ then we’re done.”

“What’re we going to do for those hours?” Deadlock asks, reaching for the tin and the brush, running a thumb through the bristles.

“Um,” Hot Rod says. Then an idea pops into his mind. “What if we go down into the bond?” he proposes. “Spend that time in memory? If we set a timer on our internal chronometers, we’ll come back up when we want.”

Deadlock pauses, cocks his head, and then asks, “What should we set out to see? It would be thematic to look at the reasons we turned away, the moments so terrible they fuelled our doubt, but… this is not supposed to be upsetting. It’s supposed to uplift us.”

“Maybe just… times when we were happy,” Hot Rod suggests. “They don’t have to be momentous. Just – finding brightness, moments when the world seemed softer. ‘Cause that’s what we’re working towards, y’know? So it’s still thematic.”

Deadlock tightens his grip on the brush’s handle. “Yes,” he whispers. “I can do that.”

They settle on the floor, shifting ‘til they’re as comfortable as it’s possible to be when there’s no cushioning involved. Deadlock carefully lays out the tin and plasma cutter on one side, Hot Rod adding the rough wire scrubber for later, though even looking at it makes his chest ache with the promise of future pain. He puts it out of mind. This is important, more important than any time before when he’d run straight into the line of fire ‘cause he was a Wrecker and that was what they did. Pain is nothing.

He and Deadlock meet their optics, red to blue, hold them for a silent moment. Both of their mouths are set, serious. Hot Rod doesn’t even feel the urge to nervous-giggle, the way he usually does at solemn events. He just vents in, vents out, watches the tiny adjustments Deadlock’s inner optical lenses make as the moments pass.

Deadlock raises the brush.

–

“ _Hey, Roddy!” comes a voice, startling Hot Rod out of his concentration on the mind-numbing rhythm game he was tapping away at on a data-pad._

_Hot Rod_ _looks up from the sofa_ _to see Trick Out, a fellow entertainer, waving at him from the entrance of the communal quarters, having just stepped in. His pelvic armour_ _i_ _s still scraped with paint transfers – bright silver on Trick Out’s dark blue – so he’s clearly fresh from his night’s client. “_ _Yeah, Tricks?”_

_Trick Out rattles a small box he’s holding. “Look what I just got!” he crows, striding across the room to launch himself into the sofa next to Hot Rod. It gives off an alarming creak._

_Hot Rod looks, but doesn’t actually know what he’s seeing. He’s still not that good at reading yet, though the older entertainers take him aside and administer lessons during those late night/early morning hours when the clients are gone and it’s just the group of them, washing paint transfers off each other, swapping stories, and generally unwinding in those strange_ _soft_ _hours where time seems a little distorted. “Ru – rust – sticks?”_ _He’s heard of the treats, but he’s never seen one himself._

_Trick Out grins. “Yep. From my regular. You know, the one with the pet play kink.”_

“ _Tall an’ silver, magenta accents?” Hot Rod recalls._

“ _The very one,” Trick Out confirms. “Gave these t’me._ _A r_ _eward for ‘good behaviour’ kinda thing. Said after the play was done that I could have the rest o’ the box. An’ I know a certain someone who’s never had one in his life. So. Here ya are, Roddy. Try one.”_

_Hot Rod carefully extracts one from the box as Trick Out holds it open. It –_ _**does** _ _look like a stick, covered in tiny little shavings that are both clinging to it and also rubbing off onto Hot Rod’s digits. They’re in a small variety of colours, and the one Hot Rod’s holding is a coppery brown._

_Hesitantly, he bites off part of it. Sweetness explodes on his glossa as the chemo-receptors there tell him its make-up. Hot Rod’s optics widen, and he’s taken another bite before he can help it._

_Trick Out chuckles. “Knew you’d like it!” he says. “Here, c’mon, try all the flavours. Go on.”_

_Hot Rod protests. “These are yours, Tricks,” he says. “I can’t take that many.”_

_Trick Out claps a hand to Hot Rod’s shoulder, pulling him close. “Yeah, you can,” he says, pressing a kiss to Hot Rod’s cheek. “You’re our newbie. You gotta look out for the newbies. ‘Sides, we’ve all had rust sticks before, we’re not gonna begrudge you your first taste. Here, they’re all yours. Enjoy!”_

_With that, Trick Out extricates himself from Hot Rod and leaps up from the sofa with a bouncing sway of his hips, the type of movement so long performed that it becomes automatic. Trick Out’s another forged entertainer, just like Hot Rod, and he’s been here far longer. He goes off, probably to claim one of the few softer pillows the group has sneaked out of the guest rooms and now hide from the supervisors_ _behind a loose_ _wall panel._

_Hot Rod looks down at the mostly-full box and smiles, his spark blossoming with the simple joy of being the recipient of a kind act. He’s not that enthused with his lot in life, but his fellows are all in the same escape pod. There’s strength and happiness to be found in banding together against the colder world outside._

–

_Drift_ _ducks underneath an exposed rebar and asks Gasket, “So where is it you’re takin’ me?”_

_Gasket turns his head to smile at Drift over his shoulder and says, vaguely, “It’s not far now. Come on.” He’s trying – and failing – to restrain an excited grin._

_Drift snorts. “Don’t ever try for mysterious again,” he decrees. “You suck_ _**so bad** _ _at it.”_

_Gasket rolls his optics. “We really aren’t far,” he says. “Have a little patience, Drift. You’re gonna like this. Promise.”_

_The two of them pick their way across the ruins of the abandoned factory, the whole place already scoured clean by scavengers of anything remotely valuable that could be sold. Drift eyes the pollution stains, the corroded metal, the crawling rust, and decides that whatever Gasket wants to show him had better be worth trawling through this death trap of a place._

_Finally, Gasket gets down and crawls under a carefully-balanced debris pile that leaves only a narrow gap below, Drift following, and says, “We’re here.”_

_**Here** _ _is_ _the remains of a room in the factory, cleared of any detritus. The roof is an open gap, like a Titan took hold and pried it off, the silhouettes of cabling and wiring still poking out of the edges. Through it, the star-scape above Cybertron spreads, clearer than Drift’s ever seen it, the smog absent._

“ _This is far enough east of the factories and foundries that their pollution isn’t heavy,” Gasket tells him quietly, “and the winds from the Titanium Plateaus take care of everything else. What’cha think?”_

_Drift’s only ever seen the stars in short, faded glimpses, their light not penetrating the noxious clouds that hung permanently over most of Rodion. “Gasket,” he breathes out, unable to put into words the sight. He feels small all of a sudden, but not in the way that dodging enforcers makes him feel small. This smallness comes from wonder, not fear._

“ _Told you I’d show you the stars,” Gasket says. “You’ll_ _have to make do with this for now, but later… We’ll go up, see ‘em for real. Leave all this behind us.”_

_It’s a pipe dream, and both of them know it. There’s only one way out of the Dead End, and it’s via the Afterspark. But – Drift lets himself indulge in the fantasy. Just for one night. For just one night, he can be someone else._

“ _Yeah,” he says, neck craning upwards, Gasket standing close by his side, their EM fields pulsing together. “Yeah. I’d like that.”_

–

_Nyon’s underground resistance movement, by virtue of the fact that it is, actually,_ _**organised,** _ _has an office. Several, in fact, scattered across the city._

_And offices tend to have break rooms._

“ _Oh, Primus,” Hot Rod mutters as he pokes his head into the small lounge, sees the scattered chaos, and ducks_ _inside_ _._ _“_ _The Pit happened here?”_

_A fellow insurgent,_ _one of several,_ _groans from the floor, clearly hungover. “Fraggin’ – Sawslice – is what happened,” he slurs out. “Slagger filed his Conjunx paperwork yesterday, memorised the layout o’ the archives he was brought into, then broke in later last night an’ downloaded all the blueprints o’ the municipal buildings. We got ‘em all, Roddy.”_

“ _Frag,” Hot Rod says, duly impressed. “What a win for us. An’ he an’ Backlight Conjunxed? Good for them.”_ _He spares a vague, longing thought for the day that he and his mystery spark-mate might do the same._

_Floor-mech groans again. “Yep. An’ now we’re all like this ‘cause we threw a party las’ night. Fraggin’ – no, mech. It was good. I’m jus’ feelin’ like slag. You know how it is.”_

_Hot Rod snorts softly. “I’ll leave you to your hangover,” he says. “You want a stabiliser? Think we got some somewhere.”_

“ _Yes, please,” his compatriot mumbles into the floor. “_ _You’re a good mech, Roddy.”_

“ _I try,” Hot Rod says. He walks out in search of some medicine for his fellows, spark swelling with victory at the sudden step-up the resistance has gotten. The way forward is long yet, but – Hot Rod has hope._

–

_D_ _eadlock curses as he stumbles, shaking, from the wash-rack. Stupid – slagging – withdrawal symptoms –_ _!_ _He bares his teeth in a silent snarl, nearly hits the corner of the table on his way pas_ _t_ _, and sits down heavily on the nearest chair._

_Megatron puts an energon cube next to his hand. “Drink,” he says. “I know you don’t feel hungry, but your tanks will be near empty. You’re burning through your fuel fast.”_

_Deadlock grimaces – he feels quite nauseous – but takes the cube, holding it carefully in his hands. His claws clink and scrape the sides. He’s still a little clumsy with the new mod._

“ _Drink,” Megatron reminds him, sitting back down and picking up a data-pad._

_Deadlock, slowly, takes a sip. Then another. Then another. The energon drips down his sensitive intake, the inner walls partially damaged by the chemicals of the half-processed fuel he’s been purging up for days, and settles heavily in his tanks. Somehow, this causes the nausea to begin to fade, instead of flaring it up again._

_Megatron sees his questioning look. “I went and researched syk withdrawal stages before I suggested you detox here,” he says, one hand rising to rub against his chin self-consciously. “I wouldn’t knowingly put you in danger.”_

_Deadlock grunts, swirls the cube. He – doesn’t know what to say, really. It’s been so long since anyone cared on a personal level about him… He’s forgotten all the rules. He’s forgotten the lines to the script. “Thank you,” he settles on, the words belated and rough. He cringes a little._

“ _You’re welcome, my friend,” Megatron says,_ _a small smile flying over his face_ _._ _He bends his head down again, going back to his data-pad. By now, Deadlock knows that he’s writing poetry._

_**My friend,** _ _Deadlock echoes in his thoughts,_ _staring into the cube that Megatron just – handed him, like such a sharing of resources was common enough to go unremarked upon_ _. Yes. Perhaps… perhaps he can try again._

–

_Hot Rod stares out of a small porthole aboard the Wreckers’ crumbling space station, the_ _**Debris.** _ _He’s alone down here in one of the abandoned lower levels. The Wreckers aren’t a large enough team to populate every layer, and since it used to be an old containment facility before they took it over… the_ _**Debris** _ _is quite big. Big enough to get lost in._

“ _Thought I might find you down here,” comes a voice from behind._

_Hot Rod doesn’t turn around, so Springer steps beside him, a green shape in his peripheral vision. “Hey, Spring,” he says, dully._

“ _Hey, Roddy,” Springer echoes back. “You got a moment?”_

_Hot Rod has nothing_ _**but** _ _moments. He lets Springer take his arm and guide him away, back into the creaky lift and up to the inhabited levels._

“ _You gave us quite a scare back there,” Springer says as the lift groans around them, trembling under their pedes. “Thought we’d be interring you in the Zone of Remembrance for sure.”_

“ _I’m fine,” Hot Rod says, even though to even the least-observant observer, he is clearly not fine. His spoiler wings twitch as Springer places a hand between them, but he doesn’t push his fellow Wrecker away._

“ _Twin Twist didn’t mean it like that,” Springer says abruptly._

“ _Then how did he mean it?” Hot Rod snaps back._

_The lift shudders to a halt, the door sliding open. Outside, Twin Twist and Topspin are waiting. Springer pushes Hot Rod forward when he pauses, out of the lift._

_Twin Twist shuffles in place a moment, then extends a hand to Hot Rod. In it, he offers a slightly-battered static-lance to Hot Rod, the very weapon that had landed him in the med-bay for over two weeks. “Here,” he says gruffly. “Took it from the slagger who nearly got ya. It’s yours.”_

_Hot Rod hesitantly takes it. He remembers it well; the Decepticon had run him through, right in his centre mass, just above his fuel tanks and just below his spark chamber. Such a wound was grievous enough, but then he’d turned the electrical charge on and – well. Hot Rod’s lucky to be alive._

_Topspin shoves an elbow into Twin Twist’s abdomen, incredibly unsubtly. Twin Twist hurries on, awkward. “I – shouldn’t have said what I said in the med-bay. I just – ya had your whole chest blown open, Roddy. I could see yer_ _**spark.”** _

_Springer coughs into his hand. It’s absolutely a gesture picked up from some organic species, because Cybertronians don’t cough._

_Twin Twist continues. “And I didn’t mean what I said,” he forces out. “You’re not the Wreckers’ weak link. Y_ _ou’re_ _not incapable. I just. Thought of putting you under yer marker, an’ –_ _blew up on ya.” He grits his denta together. “Sorry.”_

_H_ _ot Rod closes his fingers around the static-lance, fiddling with it. Twin Twist’s a violent, angry mech, who demonstrably cares only for his brother Topspin and the rest of their team mostly performatively. His cruel words at Hot Rod’s medical berth had_ _**hurt,** _ _but – perhaps he had misread the emotion they came from._

“ _Reckon Kup’ll teach me how to use this thing?” Hot Rod asks, lightly, tilting the static-lance from side to side. “If he can, I mean. Don’t want him to strain his old pistons.”_

_All three of his comrades around him relax._

“ _Don’t let him hear you say that,” Springer laughs, “even behind his back.”_

_Hot Rod snorts. “I’ve said worse to his face!”_

–

_Drift unplugs a spent circuit booster from one of the ports on his arm, wincing as a light trail of smoke curls out and the smell of burnt circuitry blooms. He grazes light fingers over the damaged port, his sensors aching in pain, and then slides the panel shut._

_The high of the circuit booster has mostly faded from his systems, only the aches of the aftermath left behind. Drift knows it’s coming every time he plugs one of the booster chips in, and it still doesn’t stop him._

_He tosses the spent chip to the ground, letting the warped thing skitter away across the pavement. Nobody cares about that sort of thing around here, and, indeed, Drift can see several other spent boosters and other illegal chips just from where he’s leaning against the grimy alley wall. He restrains the frantic, illogical urge to pick each of them up, plug them in, see if they’ve got any juice left in them. He knows already that they don’t, but cravings don’t care much for logic._

_He stretches his groaning pistons, hearing the creaks of ill-lubricated gears and joints as he exits back out onto the street, trying to figure out where exactly his last high has taken him. It’s early morning, early enough that Cybertron’s distant sun has yet to make an appearance, and the night sky stars are still shining down upon the smog. Thankfully, he knows Rodion well, so despite the ill-maintained street lamps casting the world further into shadow, he is soon on track to be reaching his and Gasket’s current squat._

_Gasket looks relieved to see him as he enters. Drift lets his friend pull him into an embrace, guilt making him hide his face in Gasket’s neck cables. He’d broken his promise to plug in only when Gasket was free to keep an optic on him, and – he doesn’t regret the high, his addiction won’t let him, but he does regret breaking Gasket’s trust._

“ _Sorry,” he murmurs. He could say something else, something like_ _ **the craving last night was really bad,** but he doesn’t. Excuses are shallow._

“ _I’m glad you’re back safe,” Gasket says, sorrow but no judgement in his voice. Drift feels his own guilt swell higher at that. “Come on, let’s get you sat down.”_

_Gasket tugs him over to their corner – they aren’t the only ones in this squat – and Drift begins to lower himself to the floor, joints stiff, when he stumbles in place and hits the ground far harder than he meant to. His knee plates ache from the impact, and Gasket is talking in his audios, but Drift can barely sense either of those things._

_His spark is swelling, stretching, unfurling. There’s a presence there that wasn’t there before, a hum of overwhelmed_ _awe_ _that Drift remembers well from his own forging. There’s something unique_ _in_ _suddenly realising that you_ _**are.** _

“ _Drift, Drift!” Gasket’s worried voice is slow to penetrate Drift’s mind, but when it does Drift looks up, his optics wide and bright, and though he does not know what wondrous look must be upon his face, it makes Gasket pause. “Drift?”_

“ _He’s awake,” Drift tells Gasket, unable to articulate the feeling any more precisely. His own voice sounds like a stranger is speaking. He’s certain he’s never sounded that amazed before._

“ _Who?” Gasket asks, kneeling beside Drift and placing a hand on his shoulder kibble. “Who’s awake?”_

_Drift awkwardly pats his chest, right over his spark chamber, trying to get across the idea to Gasket without complicated words knotting his glossa. “Him,” he says, trying to remember the right term. Gasket still looks confused, and now a couple of other mecha in the squat are starting to stare. Drift pays them no mind._

_It comes to him from stuttering memory, finally. “My spark-mate.”_

–

The chiming of their internal chronometers has them rising up and breaking the surface of their bond, minds sluggishly drawing away from each other as Deadlock becomes Deadlock again, and Hot Rod becomes Hot Rod. After only a moment, the feeling of being _Deadlock-_ _a_ _nd-Hot-Rod_ dissipates, the experience blurring and smudging like a dream slipping away.

Hot Rod feels the loss acutely, a sudden pang throughout the fade before reality fully asserts itself once again. That was… he has no words for the experience of being fully submersed within the bond. No words other than _right._ So utterly, overwhelmingly _right._

It didn’t feel like a loss of individuality, that’s the part that Hot Rod struggles to articulate. It just felt like coming together, working in tandem, feeling in tandem, _being_ in tandem. Not two halves of a whole, the way some might describe it, for lack of clearer words, but two parts coming together and being greater than their sum.

“Slag,” Hot Rod breathes out, his vocaliser laced with static. “That was…” he trails off.

Deadlock’s vents are deep but stuttering, uneven in their rhythm. “My spark-mate,” he whispers. His hands in Hot Rod’s grip tighten.

Hot Rod’s engine purrs at the sound of Deadlock’s low voice, at the words he speaks, and he doesn’t even bother to feel self-conscious about it. Deadlock is – possessive, perhaps, but Hot Rod likes it. He likes it because he knows – with the total certainty of someone fused spark-to-spark with Deadlock – that Deadlock would fight the entire universe to keep a hold of Hot Rod, but would walk away if Hot Rod but asked it of him.

“I am whole, on my own,” Deadlock murmurs to him. “But I am greater with you.”

Hot Rod shutters his optics. “At least you have the words,” he says, pulling their entwined hands towards himself, remembering only at the last second that he cannot embrace Deadlock as he intended, due to the gummy stripper caked on his chest. He stops, ruefully, Deadlock still leaning in, the honed gyros of millennia of perching in perilous sniper nests keeping him from overbalancing.

Deadlock leans in carefully, pushing a chaste kiss to Hot Rod’s lips, avoiding their chests contacting each other, and then pulling away before Hot Rod can think to try and deepen it, and definitely before Hot Rod can think that trying to deepen it would be a bad idea. “Come on,” he says, lowly, “let’s finish this.”

Hot Rod collects himself and nods. As per their prior agreement, he turns and reaches for the plasma cutter sitting beside them, firing it up and testing it out on nothing but air, letting himself become familiar with it. He looks up at his mate, but Deadlock’s face shows no signs of apprehension at future pain, despite the glow of the live plasma.

Hot Rod doesn’t insult his spark-mate by asking whether he’s sure, he already knows – has _felt –_ just how sure Deadlock is. He just says, “When you’re ready.”

Deadlock shifts his weight in place, reaches out to rest his hands on the back of Hot Rod’s, touching lightly, careful not to dwarf his mate’s smaller limbs by having his palm mostly-covering the back of Hot Rod’s wrists as well, the tips of Deadlock’s fingers grazing Hot Rod’s knuckle plates. “Ready.”

Hot Rod leans in, trails his fingers over the raised sigil, picking lightly at the edges – no give at all, not that he expected any – before resting the plasma cutter’s glowing blade to the lip of the painted-purple metal, wincing as it scrapes against his mate’s chest beside as he begins to pry it up.

Deadlock’s optics tighten, lenses spiralling small, shutters half-closing. Hot Rod’s close enough that he can hear the faint sound as his vocaliser is abruptly muted. They’re both gritting their dentas, but Hot Rod doesn’t stop, because the only way to end his mate’s pain is to finish.

It’s not a fast process. The symbol has been welded there for something near three-million years, and is very resistant to budging. Hot Rod cuts in short sessions, loosening the edges all around before sliding deeper underneath, trying to keep the cuts he’s undoubtedly making upon Deadlock’s chest armour as shallow as he can. It would perhaps be easier to start cutting off bits of the sigil as he goes, but he knows that Deadlock’s spoken desire of reattachment means that getting it off as whole as possible is what he wants.

Finally, what feels like a tense eternity later, the Decepti-brand comes off in his hands, Hot Rod catching it before it can clatter to the tiled floor. Deadlock’s grip on his wrists – which, to his credit, he has clearly tried to keep light despite the immense pain – loosens, finger joints creaking. The cycle of his vents stutters before evening out. Hot Rod hears him reset his vocaliser.

“It’s done,” Hot Rod says, hushed, feeling like this is not something to be said loudly. He powers down the plasma cutter, internally cringing at the scorched lines he has left behind on Deadlock’s chest plate. They aren’t deep enough to have compromised the armour, to have spilt energon, but they look incredibly painful.

Deadlock’s hands leave his, falling away to pick up the wire scrubber and the bucket of cool solvent they set aside earlier. Hot Rod dials down the sensors on his chest plate as much as he can and leans back a little, raising his hands to cover the backs of Deadlock’s in mirror to just a few moments ago. He, however, doesn’t need to do more than place only the very bottom of his palms over the wrists. His hands look small and bright against his mate’s.

Deadlock dips the scrubber into the solvent, squeezes lightly, and then begins work on Hot Rod’s Auto-brand. He wipes away the excess stripper, thick and gel-like, flakes of red pulling away with it, before actually applying force in his scrubs.

Hot Rod stiffens as even his partially-numb sensor-net _shrieks._ The back and forth of the rough wire on the chemical burn is agonising. There’s a reason that mecha stripped of their positions as Autobots and booted out of the army have this process done by a medic. But there’s no better option around, and Hot Rod wouldn’t tell Deadlock to stop for the world. This is _important._

So he mutes his vocaliser, clenches his denta together, and focuses on cycling his vents long and deep, making that and the movement of his hands over Deadlock’s the focus-point of his awareness.

He watches Deadlock dip in and out of the solvent, red and white paint dregs washing away like so much scum. He watches as his Auto-brand comes off in pieces, the mark given by Optimus Prime sloughing away. It had been handed down, as if from on-high, and now Hot Rod and his mate are turning their backs on it, replacing the oath to fight with the promise to love.

It is, perhaps, an uncharitable view to take. But Hot Rod’s seen the basement levels of the Garrus prisons, the reports full of redactions, and _freedom is the right of all sentient beings_ is a lovely thing to fight for, but when the definition of _sentient_ is long-debated and changeable, it’s just another set of pretty words.

The Decepticons aren’t better. If anything, they’re worse. Hot Rod’s heard of the horrors of Grindcore, the atrocities committed by Shockwave and his group of scientists, the unrepentant massacres. But – just because his old side has committed _less_ horrors _,_ doesn’t excuse them for all the many hundreds of thousands that they _have_ done.

Hot Rod breathes in, breathes out. Deadlock’s nearly finished, just scrubbing away at the last stains of red over his spark chamber. The evils of the war are so huge, so immense, that trying to comprehend them all at once is a fast-track course towards feeling your own helplessness, your own tiny stature overshadowed by the enormity of what their species has become.

And maybe some would say it’s cowardliness, to break free, to run away, to try and start anew elsewhere. To stop doing his part. To stop trying to end the fighting. To stop – sometimes truthfully, sometimes only ostensibly – protecting innocents.

It doesn’t feel like it, though. It feels like – like… like drawing a line. _This is it. This is where it ends. I’ll go no further._ _I can’t stop the war. I can’t stop the horrors, the atrocities, the deaths._ _I can’t change what I’ve already done. I can’t change the acts and consequences of the path I’ve walked so far._

_But I can stop myself._ _I can stop myself from_ _going on_ _, from going down a well-intentioned, broken road._ _**No more.** _

Deadlock puts down the wire scrubber, picks up a cloth, and wipes the grey patch where Hot Rod’s Auto-brand used to sit. There’s no paint left now, and the pain lessens the longer the left-over burn goes without abrasive contact. “It is done,” his mate murmurs, putting down the cloth.

Hot Rod swallows, resets his vocaliser, nods his head, and murmurs back, “No more.” He reaches for the bond, tugs it open, sends the jumble of thoughts and musings down it to his spark-mate.

Deadlock dims his optics. Hot Rod waits one moment, two moments, before Deadlock blinks back to the present, to the cool wash-rack and the tiled floor and the array of equipment spread around them, to the _Luminary_ zipping its way through space, the war far behind them.

Deadlock pulls Hot Rod forward, the two embracing properly this time, ignoring the pain upon their chests. Hot Rod loops his arms around, pressing his face into Deadlock’s neck cables.

“Agreed,” Deadlock whispers into Hot Rod’s audio, EM field stretching out in one part sorrowful guilt and one part steady determination. “No more.”

Strangely, this is the most uplifting thing Hot Rod has heard in aeons.

**Author's Note:**

> The cultural world-building IDW did remains one of my favourite things about that particular TF verse. How easy would it have been to continue the trend of _robots don't get holidays/symbolism/metaphor because it's not logical haha?_ And yet they went for the exact opposite. There's plenty of things IDW fell short on, but this one I think they hit very nicely. The rituals/holidays mentioned here are all TF canon, though not all from IDW, complete with their own TF Wiki page. 
> 
> Now, just to let you guys know, _Efface_ wraps up the - I'm going to call it the Prologue Trilogy - for this series. All subsequent instalments will all be within the same verse still, but will be less inter-connected (i.e. will not lead so immediately into each other) and have larger time-skips between. I hope you enjoyed these first three instalments, and I'll see you next time :)
> 
> I can also be found on [tumblr](https://stairre.tumblr.com/). Come and say hello!


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